Integrated Pest Management

Oregon State University

Across millennia, humans have used a variety of approaches in attempts to maintain pest insects at tolerable levels. The character of these approaches has evolved over time. Since the late 1960s, an approach termed integrated pest management (IPM) has ascended to dominance internationally. In essence, IPM is a decision-based process involving coordinated use of multiple tactics for optimizing the control of all classes of pests (arthropods, microbial pathogens, vertebrates, weeds) in an ecologically and economically sound manner.